dept. of ethics —

CES tells CNET: You’re fired!

Group says CBS tossed principle when it nixed journos’ award to Dish Hopper.

At the 2013 CES convention, CNET's editorial staff loved the Dish Hopper DVR and nominated it "Best in Show." That journalistic decision was quickly tossed out, however, by the legal department at CBS, CNET's corporate parent. CBS is involved in litigation against Dish over the Hopper.

The censoring of CNET's decision has produced a fair bit of fallout for CBS already. The company has been criticized in many quarters for silencing its journalists. Greg Sandoval, a well-known writer for CNET, even left the company, saying he was concerned that his employer didn't respect editorial independence.

Now, CES itself has put out a press release slamming CNET's behavior and announcing that CNET won't be allowed to produce the "Best of CES" awards anymore. Those awards are produced by CNET under contract with the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), which puts on CES. CEA said it will work to identify a new partner to run the Best of CES awards.

"We are shocked that the ‘Tiffany’ network which is known for its high journalistic standards would bar all its reporters from favorably describing classes of technology the network does not like," said CEA President Gary Shapiro in the statement.

Shapiro went on to express his view that a time- and space-shifting technology like the Dish Hopper is protected by the famous "Betamax" decision which legalized the VCR. "We believe that the Dish Hopper DVR is fully covered by the Supreme Court’s ruling in Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios Inc.," said Shapiro. "The simple fact is making television easier to watch is not against the law. It is simply pro-innovation and pro-consumer."

Shapiro had even stronger words for CBS in an op-ed published yesterday in USA Today.

"CBS ... will never be viewed again as pristine," wrote Shapiro. "The ethical media rule is that corporate business interests should never interfere in journalism—or at least not so blatantly, publicly, and harmfully. It made me wonder if 60 Minutes had ever suffered the same treatment."

Dish created a new product that CBS believes hurts its advertaising revenues and has forbidden its journalists from reporting favorably on the Dish's Product.

This is blatent bias by CBS who has put its corporate interest over journalistic integrity, and fair reporting. Which is completely unethical and wrong, what I wonder about is if CBS has done this in the past and for how long.

It simply amazes me how blatant corporations can be. didn't CBS think for one second that there might be some fallout from that decision...

probably not...

This isn't a CBS thing. This is the mentality of upper management. Not all mind you. But there are more then a few out there who are idiots when it comes to understanding how the public sees them and their company.

When cbs interviewed the pets.com sock puppet after CBS invested millions on pets.com I know journalism was dead. Of course NBC profited from airing the video of the Virginia Tech shooter, so no one is clean.

I think that CEA made the right decision here. It is sad that it happened and I hope the fall out will convince CBS to rethink their strategy.

I'm guessing that they already regret the decision.

I'm betting that some mid-level lawyer that had just enough authority made the decision unilaterally, and by the time someone at the VP level that understood how bad the PR would be got this thrown on his desk it had already spun far out of control. I'm actually mildly surprised that CBS hasn't issued a mea culpa over it yet, but for whatever reason they must have decided that they needed to stand by the decision already made (after all, the damage has already been done).

To my knowledge, CBS hasn't issued a statement about it (either defending or apologizing), and if they haven't by this point they likely aren't going to.

CBS could have ended this all on the first day. They could have denied the award and stated that because CNET is owned by CBS they cannot accept the award.

In fact that should be an obvious violation of whatever contest rules CES uses. Normally family/workers at a company can not win if a prize is given by their own company... or is CES not really a contest and just some advertising gimmick?

CBS could have ended this all on the first day. They could have denied the award and stated that because CNET is owned by CBS they cannot accept the award.

In fact that should be an obvious violation of whatever contest rules CES uses. Normally family/workers at a company can not win if a prize is given by their own company... or is CES not really a contest and just some advertising gimmick?

CEA hired CNET (which is part of CBS) to do the judging so that CES could hand out the award.

So, if there was some gizmo invented by CBS, that would be ineligible by your thinking. DISH and Hopper (they are different companies, right?) are not part of CBS. Nor is it part of CEA, CES or CNET.

CBS could have avoided this all if they had put the editorial part of CNET under the CBS News umbrella: it's true that CBS has a long history of respecting the integrity of their journalism department, but the money-blind execs in the boardroom just see CBS Interactive as "the web guys", not real journalism. Of course, I imagine CNET's content would like quite different if it were held to the same standards as the Pelley et al.

Geeze, I had to read this article like 3 times because I was speed reading and CES, CBS, CEA were starting to all blur. Now that I actually comprehend the article, good move CES. Really frustrating that CBS pulled this kind of crap.

"CBS ... will never be viewed again as pristine," wrote Shapiro. "The ethical media rule is that corporate business interests should never interfere in journalism—or at least not so blatantly, publicly, and harmfully. It made me wonder if 60 Minutes had ever suffered the same treatment."

Translation: Geez, guys, you're not supposed to suppress things you don't like out where the proles can see you do it! Now we have to act all aggrieved and claim this type of thing doesn't happen every single damn day. Eh, they'll buy it and we'll be back in bed in a couple of years. See you then! (kiss kiss)

"CBS ... will never be viewed again as pristine," wrote Shapiro. "The ethical media rule is that corporate business interests should never interfere in journalism—or at least not so blatantly, publicly, and harmfully. It made me wonder if 60 Minutes had ever suffered the same treatment."

Umm, Mr. Shaprio really didn't do his homework. Officially, 60 minutes was forced to pull a story on big tobacco by CBS "lawyers" in 1995. Yeah, Mr. Shapiro, 60 minutes has suffered the same treatment.

It's nothing new. Corporations ordering their news gathering branches to toe the corporate line. Fox News and MSNBC News are prime examples of extreme bias in "news" reporting as a result of corporate policies.